Barack Obama already has a brother-in-law living in Oregon, OSU basketball coach Craig Robinson. And it turns out that one of Obama's potential vice-presidential picks, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, also has an Oregonian for a brother-in-law.

That would be Dwight Holton, an assistant U.S. attorney in Portland, whose sister, Anne Holton, is married to Kaine.

Holton politely declined to comment when I talked to him Friday morning. He's clearly in a sensitive position, working for a U.S. attorney, Karen Immergut, who is an appointee of President Bush.

If Kaine does get the nod, I don't imagine Holton would be as prominent in the campaign as Robinson, who has his own celebrity appeal as a Division I basketball coach. In fact, Robinson will introduce his sister, Michelle Obama, when she addresses the Democratic National Convention the week after next.

But Holton has his own fascinating political pedigree. His father, Linwood Holton, was governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974, the first Republican to hold the job since reconstruction. His father was best remembered for enrolling his four children in predominantly black schools in Richmond, a sign the state would no longer resist federal court orders to desegregate its schools.

Dwight Holton later worked on Democrat Doug Wilder's gubernatorial campaign in Virginia and in the Clinton White House. His wife, Mary Ellen Glynn, was a deputy press secretary for Clinton, a spokeswoman for UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and then was Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski's first communications director.